In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London

Sandle Bros, Manufacturing Stationers

February 7, 2015

by the gentle author

Not so long ago, there were a multitude of long-established Manufacturing Stationers in and around the City of London, of which Baddeley Brothers is the only survivor today. Sandle Brothers opened in one small shop in Paternoster Row on November 1st 1893, yet soon expanded and began acquiring other companies, including Dobbs, Kidd & Co founded in 1793, until they filled the entire street with their premises – and become heroic stationers, presiding over long-lost temples of envelopes, pens and notepads which you see below, recorded in this brochure from the Bishopsgate Institute.

I have just heard that the former premises of Gary Arber, the legendary Printer & Stationer of 459 Roman Rd, are under threat from developers. Learn more about the campaign to save it at Roman Rd Residents & Businesses Association

Sandal Bros still had a place at Snow Hill in the 1950′s
I used to collect goods there but it all stopped when it became impossible to pull up a van outside when the parking restrictions bacame a menace.
Gary

What a fabulous place, a real Aladdin’s cave for someone like me who just cannot resist buying stationary, and it seems that I am not alone from other comments. How sad it is that we no longer have so many of the lovely stationary shops that used to be in every town and city, we had a wonderful one in Colchester where I live, and as students we spent so many happy hours in there. I wonder if there is a name for people who are addicted to buying stationary?

How I would LOVE to be able to go back with a bit of money and wander through those rooms!
You can see from the photos how beautiful the quality of the objects produced there would have been – high standards of manufacture & finishing, just perfect to handle, to examine, to enjoy!

Isn’t it SAD how impoverished we have become, in stationery terms? It is a sort of cultural tragedy, how everything has become progressively less and less various, and we are left with supermarkets who all sell the same things, and only a few decent shops are left here and there. As for stationery, so with haberdashery. Business rates, tax regimes, and planning laws favour the big destroyers.

Thank-you Gentle Author for sharing this lovely factory and its goods with us, and for telling about what we can do to help Mr Arber.

Delighted to find this as my Grandfather was Sidney Ernest Sandle, son of sidney John Sandle one of the founders of Sandle Bros. Sidney Ernest also work in the family firm and we used to get books, usually rejects, with the winged sandal which was their trade mark.

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